Featured on the cover of the current issue of ACS Applied Energy Materials is an image created by ECE undergrad Gary Qian and graduate student Botong Qiu. Qian and Qiu’s image serves as an illustration of the industrialized process of utilizing 3-D printed molds to create a unique solar cell arrangement that could be incorporated into building infrastructures. The accompanying article, written by assistant professor Susanna Thon, lead author Yida Lin, and co-authors Garrett Ung, Botong Qiu, and Gary Qian, describes a process for creating a new type of solar cell based on inexpensive materials with the goal of mass scale production.
The article, titled Integrated Concentrators for Scalable High-Power Generation from Colloidal Quantum Dot Solar Cells, describes an integrated lensing scheme that results in a “20-fold increase in photocurrent and power” that would also allow for substantial “open circuit voltage enhancements” compared to solar cells without the integrated lenses.